Young Americans Are Turning Off the TV

As streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ have taken over a huge chunk of TV consumption in the United States, traditional TV is finding itself under increased pressure to defend its place as the go-to medium for entertainment, distraction and information. And while people still spend a lot of time watching live and timeshifted TV on average, that's largely due to heavy TV usage by Americans aged 65 and above, who watch roughly 10 times as much traditional TV as young adults do.

According to Nielsen, Americans aged 18 to 34 watch less than five hours of live and timeshifted TV per week. At the other end of the scale, those aged 65 and older watch more than 40 hours on average. Making this worse for the TV industry, there's a growing share of young adults who don't watch TV at all, as they get all they need from digital sources. According to Statista Consumer Insights, 50 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. say that they don't watch any traditional TV, compared to just 29 percent of 55 to 64-year-olds. That share would likely be even lower for those aged 65 and older, but they have not been surveyed in this case.